trainsinmaine wrote:This is really amazing. So . . . there is no longer any freight running on the MBTA (ex-B&M, Fitchburg) line east of Ayer? What about on the old Eastern up through Beverly to Ipswich? I assume that is solely a commuter line nowadays as well.
Oh, definitely freight jobs. Just not a lot of freight sidings.
-- Boston Sand & Gravel in Somerville is a daily job unto itself via Lawrence and the Lowell Line. I believe that is still Pan Am's largest single customer in Massachusetts. Pretty much the entire existence of New Hampshire Northcoast RR is predicated on serving BS&G out of NH's sand quarries.
-- Everett Terminal gets dailies from both PAR via Lawrence/Lowell Line and CSX via Worcester Line/Grand Junction
-- Readville Yard very much active, CSX daily round-trip + miscellaneous run-as-directeds via Framingham Secondary/Franklin Line
-- Home Depot warehouse in Norwood in the industrial park behind Route 128 station gets a 3-day-a-week CSX out of Readville via short jaunt on NEC.
-- Lowell Line very much thriving with on-line customers north of Winchester Center, with Tighe Warehouse @ the Montvale siding a huge newer one. NH Main's usually served by an overnight local.
-- The sewage treatment plant at Quincy Shipyard still has Fore River Transportation packing Braintree Yard full of tankers every day for CSX to pick up out of Middleboro on the overnight.
Much spottier after that:
-- 2-3 day-a-week local to Salem/Peabody to serve Eastman Gelatin on the PAR South Peabody Branch (business is booming of late), occasionally Univar next to old Castle Hill Yard in Salem, and once every couple years a boxcar to some mysterious customer across the Eastern Route ROW from Univar.
-- The Home Depot warehouse local extends to Stoughton to serve 1 remaining customer about once a week. CSX negotiated to get the second Stoughton customer next door relocated to Middleboro Yard, however, so you wonder how much longer this last Stoughton holdout is going to be there.
-- One-a-week out of Readville to East Walpole via the remnant of the Wrentham Branch south of Norwood Central to serve a customer there (although that's gotten way spottier of late, so it's not healthy business)
-- The Widett weekly. Which will turn into a nightly when Massport gets something going at Marine Terminal.
-- *Technically* the Medford Branch off the Western Route is still active with a cold storage warehouse advertised on PAR's website. But they haven't taken a load since Summer 2010. The Budweiser brewery at the same siding has been hemming and hawing with PAR for 3 years now about resuming service at pretty decent carloads...but the clearance restrictions on the Western Route in Medford have negotiations at a standstill.
-- M.S. Walker is still there at BET for the time being, although obviously they'll be moving southside pretty soon.
That's it, though.
-- Nothing on the Eastern north of Salem. Guilford abandoned all their freight rights in 1984. And no potential biz.
-- Nothing on the Eastern between Everett Terminal and Salem. GE plant in Lynn always a potential customer if they start manufacturing something conducive to rail, and the East Boston Branch always a possibility. But unless Town of Peabody attracts a new industrial park customer on the OOS portion of the South Peabody Branch that's the northernmost extent of the new potential.
-- Nothing on the Western between Somerville and Wilmington Jct. No potential online biz, except for if any of that Medford Branch stuff shakes out. Maybe some overhead freight
traffic, though, if GLX wrecks PAR's Lowell Line access thoroughly enough.
-- Nothing on the Fitchburg Line east of Willows Jct. Ocean Spray/Veryfine's siding has been dead for 4 years now. No potential biz.
-- No sidings on the Franklin Line...just the steady overhead traffic to/from Readville.
-- No sidings on the Worcester Line east of Framingham to--for the time being--Houghton Chemical. Just the steady overhead job from Framingham to Everett via the Grand Junction.
-- No Lowell Line sidings between Winchester and Somerville, just the steady overhead traffic.
-- Nobody whatsoever has freight rights on the Needham Line, Plymouth Line, or Greenbush Line east of Fore River Transportation's branch in East Braintree.
-- Nothing on the NEC between the Stoughton weekly's poke to Canton Jct. and the daily to the Mansfield-Attleboro daily.
-- Nothing on the Fairmount Line except for the weekly overnight Widett Circle job and the future daily overnight overhead traffic to Marine Terminal.